The Challenge of Storytelling

Do artists-musicians, writers, painters, designers, intend simply to portray an accurate version of their own personal interpretation?

Or do they create to inspire? To evoke a whole rainbow of new visions and emotions.

It is difficult to portray the feeling of a place through a photograph. I have attempted here to capture a small dimension of the wondrous natural beauty of the Australian bushland surrounding Lake Tinaroo, and the luscious farmland set within a bed of fertile soil, abound by rolling hills.

A two dimensional image however, fails in many ways to do a scene justice, for it relies on only one of our senses-sight.

The scent of the rich earth after the rainfall we had overnight, made me want to taste the ground and when I wound down the window of my car, the cool breeze felt instantly vibrant, something my habitual utilisation of air conditioning disguises. How nice to smell the country air, and to feel the breeze on my skin.

The sounds, everywhere and nowhere, were what really relaxed me. A combination of deathly silence, and then the beautiful musicality in the trees above. Birds sang and flipped and flapped around doing their thing, completely oblivious to the fact Donald Trump is all over the news-what a pleasure-I soaked up all that surrounded me, like it was medicine…yet a photograph does not tell this story, now does it?

It simply gives you a starting point. It’s akin to the front cover of a novel. It leaves you with an impression, which either triggers interest or indifference-the potential to lose the true meaning-originating in the mind of the photographer is high as it’s quickly lost in the viewers individual interpretation.

But does it really matter?

Do artists-musicians, writers, painters, designers, intend simply to portray an accurate version of their own personal interpretation?

Or do they create to inspire? To evoke a whole rainbow of new visions and emotions.

When I took these shots on the banks of Tinaroo, it was about 6:00 pm. There was a cold breeze, yet I chose to wear a flimsy shirt and allow myself to feel the wind run through me.

It was darkening quickly. There were clouds threatening to drop rain, settling above the Lake. The usual music of the bird life was playing in the background, but my focus was on the howling wind, and the associated loneliness that came with that. There was not a sole around. Just me, and the rippling waves of what water was left in the parched Lake.

I hope you enjoy the photos I have prepared, if only the cover page of a story untold, yet a story that lives in the mind of a solitary soul.